Generation of plants with improved drought tolerance
View Patent ↗The present invention is directed to plants that display a drought tolerance phenotype due to altered expression of a DRO3 nucleic acid. The invention is further directed to methods of generating plants with a drought tolerance phenotype.
1. A transgenic plant comprising a plant transformation vector comprising a nucleotide sequence that encodes a DRO3 polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 95% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:2, wherein said DRO3 polypeptide is expressed and wherein said transgenic plant has increased drought tolerance relative to control plants.
2. The transgenic plant of claim 1 wherein the transformation vector comprises a constitutive promoter that controls expression of the DRO3 polypeptide.
3. A transgenic plant part obtained from the plant according to claim 1 .
4. The plant part of claim 3 , which is a transgenic seed.
5. A method of producing increased drought tolerance in a plant, said method comprising:
a) introducing into progenitor cells of the plant a plant transformation vector comprising a nucleotide sequence that encodes a DRO3 polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence having at least 95% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO:2, and
b) growing the transformed progenitor cells to produce a transgenic plant, wherein said nucleotide sequence is expressed, and said transgenic plant exhibits increased drought tolerance relative to control plants.
6. A plant obtained by the method of claim 5 .
7. The transgenic plant of claim 1 , wherein the DRO3 polypeptide comprises the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:2.
8. The method of claim 5 , wherein the DRO3 polypeptide comprises the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:2.